Thanks to a decadeslong love of Frank Sinatra and a relationship with his family that started when Frank Sinatra Jr. guest-starred on Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane was entrusted with a gold mine of never-released material arranged for the late crooner that has become his just-released ninth studio album, Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements.

“If you’re an aficionado of this kind of music, it’s like being a Lennon-McCartney fan and finding something that was written in like 1969 that was just never played,” MacFarlane tells Billboard‘s Pop Shop Podcast of Frank’s daughter, Tina Sinatra, approaching him with the opportunity to dig into 1,200 archival boxes of unrecorded sheet music arranged specifically for her dad. “And you hear it, and it’s like, ‘My God.’

“You know, the songs that we have are the songs that we have from his discography; obviously he’s gone, the arrangers are gone, so there’s nothing new. And then all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Oh, you know what? There’s one more cookie at the bottom of the bag.’”

Listen to MacFarlane’s full interview in the new Pop Shop Podcast episode below:

Below, find highlights from our conversation with MacFarlane, and listen to the full chat in the podcast above.

Did Seth know these songs before digging in?

In many cases, no one has ever heard of them, because they just didn’t exist. There’s a song called “Who’s in Your Arms Tonight” — you could travel to the ends of the earth before we did this, and you would not find a single person who knows that song, because it just was never recorded, and everyone involved with this writing is long gone. … We asked the oldest guys in the band — I mean, our bassist played for Frank Sinatra for years in the last part of his life, and he had no idea what this was. So about a third of the songs on the album are songs in which both the song and the arrangement are just completely unknown.

What stood out in these unreleased arrangements?

Particularly in the case of [Sinatra arranger] Nelson Riddle, you could instantly hear his signature trademarks, like those flutes. And that was what was so interesting. There was no question who wrote this, but it was new. It was familiar stylistically, but it was new, in the same way you watch a Wes Anderson movie that’s brand-new, you’re instantly going to know it’s him. You’re going to see his visual touchstones, but the movie’s brand-new. That’s kind of how it was. It was so clearly Nelson Riddle, but we were hearing the first new Nelson Riddle chart that anyone has heard in decades. So it was a pretty profound moment.

Is there a duet opportunity for frequent collaborator Liz Gillies or Carpool Karaoke partner Ariana Grande?

It would have been nice if we had found some, you know, Rosemary Clooney or Peggy Lee duet. I mean, Liz would have been my first call. For this kind of music, there’s just no one better on the planet, but so far, we have not found any duets. We haven’t dug through these boxes in such detail that there couldn’t be one — there may be. There are 1,200 boxes. We couldn’t play everything on that day because an orchestra is expensive. … But there’s so much in that archive that it is possible, and, yeah, if we find something, then we’ll give Liz a call.

How long could Seth be mining this material?

There are a couple [songs] that we recorded that we cut from this album, just because we had, I don’t know, some edict to get it down to 12 songs or less. All I know is we were told initially, I think they wanted it to be like six songs. I’m, like, “Guys, that’s not an album.” I don’t know, there’s all this, like, marketing data that they go by, and really, nobody knows sh–, because if they did, everything would be a monster hit. [Laughs] So I do remember us pushing back and saying, “Let’s do an album’s worth of songs for this thing.” So it’s a dozen songs, which, for a Sinatra album, was in the ballpark. And there were a couple songs that we did record that were not included that would be on the next one. … There are probably two albums’ worth of real, honest-to-God songs that can be released.

On his July 3-5 stint at Voltaire Las Vegas

Is three days a residency? [Laughs] I once spent a week in Vegas, and I was like, “I’m forgetting who I am. I’m an insane person. The walls are moving.” That’s a lot of Vegas.

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Also on this week’s Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Taylor Swift’s former No. 1 album reputation, released in 2017, jumps from No. 78 to No. 5 on the Billboard 200 following an outpouring of fan support of the project after Swift announced she had acquired her Big Machine Records-era music catalog. Plus, SEVENTEEN and Miley Cyrus’ latest releases debut in the top five, while the top slots on both the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 are static, with Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” and Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” staying put.

We also hit the biggest pop headlines of the week, including Sabrina Carpenter’s new “Manchild” single and video, Darren Criss and Nicole Scherzinger winning at the Tony Awards, David Byrne joining Olivia Rodrigo onstage at Governors Ball, and Mariah Carey returning with her new Eric B. & Rakim-sampling single “Type Dangerous.”

The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)

Kirk Franklin closed the 2025 BET Awards by performing a medley of hits featuring Tamar Braxton, Muni Long, Jamal Roberts and Salt from Salt-N-Pepa after he received an Ultimate Icon Award.

“I never felt the love of a mother or a father,” he said during his acceptance speech when talking about being adopted. “The only time I felt love was when I sat behind the piano and wrote songs to Jesus. People loved my songs and the more I wrote, the more people listened. Thank you to all of you that still listen. Thank you to every group, singer, musician that’s been the microphone to my pain.”

He then went on to say that even though he makes gospel music that the masses have come to enjoy, that still doesn’t make him more than human. “I am not perfect,” he told the crowd. “I fail, I sin, I am not a perfect Christian, I’m not a perfect husband, and we all know I’m not a perfect father. I’m not even a perfect artist because I can’t even sing, which makes this award even more amazing, because what I really do don’t make sense and if you’re listening to this that’s when you know it’s God when it don’t make sense.”

Franklin then shut things down by performing some of his popular songs like “Stomp,” “Silver & Gold,” and “Melodies From Heaven,” with D.C. Young Fly serving as a pastor delivering a sermon right before Franklin and his army of performers went into an energized remix of “Revolution.”

Snoop Dogg, Mariah Carey and Jamie Foxx also received Ultimate Icon Awards at Monday night’s show.

Kendrick Lamar was the top winner at the 2025 BET Awards, which aired live on BET from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Monday (June 9). Kevin Hart hosted the show for the second time.

Lamar won five awards – album of the year for GNX, best collaboration for “Luther” with SZA, best male hip hop artist (for a record-extending eighth time), video of the year for “Not Like Us” and video director of the year in tandem with Dave Free.

Lamar had won album of the year seven years ago for DAMN. Lamar and Beyoncé are the only artists to win twice in that category, which was introduced in 2017. Bey won for Lemonade and Renaissance.

GNX, which is a leading Grammy candidate for album of the year in 2026, beat three albums that won Grammys in February – Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter (album of the year and best country album), Chris Brown’s 11:11 Deluxe (best R&B album) and Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal (best rap album).

SZA and Chris Brown each won two awards. SZA won best female R&B/pop artist for the third year in a row as well as the aforementioned award for best collaboration. SZA is just the third artist to win best female R&B/pop artist three or more times. Beyoncé leads with 10 wins in the category. Alicia Keys also won three times.

Brown won best male R&B/pop artist for a record-extending eighth time. In addition, his “Residuals” won the Viewer’s Choice Award. It’s Brown’s fourth win in that category, a total equaled or surpassed only by Beyoncé with five wins and Lil Wayne also with four wins.

Luther Vandross was remembered by fans in two categories: Not only did “Luther” win best collaboration, but the documentary Luther: Never Too Much won best movie. This is the second year in a row that a film about a music legend has won in that category. Bob Marley: One Love won last year.

Doechii won best female hip hop artist. It was her first BET Award. She proceeded to give an impassioned speech in support of protesters outside the venue protesting ICE crackdowns.

Leon Thomas won best new artist. He’s the first male artist to win in the category since Giveon four years ago. Thomas won a Grammy in 2024 for co-writing SZA’s “Snooze,” which was voted best R&B song. As a result, he will probably not be eligible to compete for best new artist at the 2026 Grammys. Thomas also performed his hit “Mutt” on the show.

GloRilla’s “Rain Down on Me” (featuring Kirk Franklin and Maverick City Music) won the Dr. Bobby Jones Best Gospel/Inspirational Award. It’s the record-extending eighth win in the category for Franklin, the second for Maverick City Music and the first for GloRilla.

Future & Metro Boomin took best group. It’s the third year in a row that a collaboration of two solo stars has won that award. The last groups to win were Migos and Silk Sonic.

Summer Walker’s “Heart of a Woman” won the BET Her award. The song reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs chart in December 2024.

Blue Ivy Carter won the Young Stars Award for the second year in a row. BET rules allow multiple wins in this category. Marsai Martin won five times. Yara Shahidi and Keke Palmer also won it twice.

Denzel Washington won best actor for a record-extending fifth time. Cynthia Erivo won best actress for the first time.

Basketball star Angel Reese won sportswoman of the year for the third year in a row. Football star Jalen Hurts won sportsman of the year for the second time in three years.

Drake was shut out, despite going into the ceremony with six nods. The Weeknd was also shut out. He went 0-4.

There were special tributes to three legendary artists who died in the past year – Quincy Jones, Roberta Flack and Angie Stone. Luke James, Miles Caton and Lucky Daye performed Jones’ 1990 hit “The Secret Garden (Sweet Seduction Suite).” Andra Day sang Flack’s 1973 classic “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” Brittney Spencer sang Stone’s 1999 hit “No More Rain (In This Cloud).” The multiple In Memoriam segments included Cissy Houston, James Earl Jones, Tito Jackson, Roy Ayers, Frankie Beverly and poet Nikki Giovanni.

As previously announced, Kirk Franklin, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg and Jamie Foxx were named BET Ultimate Icons. Astonishingly, it’s Carey’s first BET Award.

Connie Orlando — evp of specials, music programming and music strategy at BET — served as the executive producer for BET Awards 2025, with Jamal Noisette, svp of tentpoles and music community engagement, for BET. Jesse Collins Entertainment was the production company for the show, with Jesse Collins, Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay also serving as executive producers.